


Violet Demiurge

by wizardslexicon



Category: Subarashiki Kono Sekai | The World Ends With You
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-10
Updated: 2013-03-10
Packaged: 2017-12-04 20:29:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/714760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wizardslexicon/pseuds/wizardslexicon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A detached version of Joshua's life story before the events of TWEWY.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Violet Demiurge

In retrospect, Yoshiya Kiryu was always a strange child.

When his delighted parents first brought him home from the hospital, he already seemed detached from the world. He made low, calm noises when he needed food, learned to use his potty quickly, and ate without complaint or much mess. His parents took him to see a doctor, but there were no detectable problems. The only time he would have problems was when they took him out on the town, to enjoy Shibuya. Then he would squall, and beat his parents, looking at the wonders of the city as though monsters lurked behind every corner. His parents learned to let him stay inside, and the problems subsided.

He learned to read early. Devouring tragedies, romances, fairy tales, and adventures alike, his creativity quickly blossomed. The literary classics of Japan were his bedtime stories, read by lamp light while his parents slept. His hair, straggly and blond, coupled with his large eyes, made him a cute child.

His first day of school was a disaster. He did not speak to other children. He would not play with other children. The only time he raised his hand was to ask a single question.

“Sensei, why do people run around Shibuya messing with pins and floating symbols?” The teacher was not convinced even when little Yoshiya dragged him to the front of the school and pointed frantically to a pair of teenagers running elsewhere in the middle of an otherwise empty street.

“Why, there’s no one there, Yoshiya. Let’s go inside, alright?” When Yoshiya returned to the classroom, breathing hard and blushing with shame, the other students’ eyes had filled with mirth. He stomped back to his seat and opened a paperback.

Middle school was a trial. Alone, bullied. His life was a drudgery. Every day, his parents would lament his existence, a far cry from their joy at his birth.

“Yoshiya, if you’d just try to get along with the others!”

“Perfect marks won’t forge connections!”

It was all noise to him. He took to wearing earphones whenever he wasn’t in class, with no music. If people thought he couldn’t hear, they wouldn’t talk to him. He remained cloistered, and alone. While he was still in middle school, he started to notice one boy. His name was Neku Sakuraba, and he seemed a lot like Yoshiya. His hair was straighter, and black instead of blond, but he was pretty quiet, and kept to himself.

The day Yoshiya decided to befriend Neku, a transfer student moved in, sitting right next to Neku. They struck up a conversation immediately, and Yoshiya was alone again.

That day he went home just to change into something more comfortable than his uniform, and left to wander the streets of Shibuya. Sporting his favorite oversized dress shirt and jeans, he strolled, hands in pockets, watching the games go on.

He saw a man with garish orange hair and a pink-haired punk princess confronted by two bland young men. Together, the weirdos with the colored hair summoned some symbol with massive, curling tusks, and sent it at the young men. After a short time, the young men burst into television static. The two freaks gave each other a knuckle-touch, and the orange haired man distinctly said: “I win, Uzuki.” He turned around, and Yoshiya saw that he had short black wings on his back. An Angel of Death, perhaps?

Before he knew it, Yoshiya was on Cat Street. He smelled something delicious, and saw a small coffee shop on the corner. It was a new place that he’d never seen before, and he felt strangely compelled to enter it. The sign above it said “WildKat”. As he pushed the door open, he saw that the place was empty, and a coolly dressed man was drinking coffee on a stool at the counter.

“Hey there, kid! Cuppa joe for the road?” Yoshiya could tell from first sight that this man was not normal. Besides the fact that he was wearing sandals with slacks, a dress shirt, and a vest, was wearing shades inside, and seemed perfectly happy to have an empty shop, there was a strange radiance to him.

“Who are you, and what do you know about the people who die on the streets?” The question was almost too direct. Yoshiya could feel the man appraising him, staring at him over the top of the glasses. He started to back away, but suddenly the man burst out laughing.

“You’re a great kid, y’know that? I’m Sanae Hanekoma, and I know way too much about everything in Shibuya.” Yoshiya paused, barely believing his luck.

“So you see them, too? The symbols, and the black-winged people?” Sanae paused, reaching into his pocket, then without warning tossed something small and circular and Yoshiya, who fumbled before catching it and flipping it over. It was a black pin, with a stylised skull design. He’d seen it clutched in the hands of bodies lying in the middle of the Scramble at the start of a week more times than he could remember.

“Tell me your name, kid, and then we can talk about...everything.”

“I’m Yoshiya Kiryu.”

“Yoshiya? Sounds like Joshua to me. Alright, Joshua, let me fill you in...”

“My name is Yoshiya!” When he left that day, Yoshiya’s whole world was turned upside down. A Reapers’ Game? Erasure? While part of him was in shock, the rest of him was amazed and delighted. His imagination was going haywire with the newfound knowledge. Who knew what glorious tragedies and valorous deeds took place in the UG?

The next day at school, he smiled, didn’t mind talking and laughing. _He knew something they didn’t_. To hell with Neku Sakuraba. He had Sanae Hanekoma.

The next few years passed predictably. Joshua became a sarcastic wallflower, and Neku closed his rapidly blooming self into an imaginative bud. And Joshua hated it. His life was stagnating. He could feel himself pulling away from school, his foolish parents, and toward the world of people and beings like Sanae. He knew that he would end up in the UG when he died (Sanae was very clear on that point), but the problem was that he was ready now. Life was boring; only in death could he find respite.

Sanae caught him in the back of WildKat, stealing his Reaper-issue pistol.

“You really wanna go through with this, Joshua?” Sanae didn’t have to ask what Joshua was doing. The young boy cracked a sardonic smile and twirled the gun.

“My dear Sanae, have I ever committed a crime I didn’t mean?”

Yoshiya Kiryu was found in front of the Udagawa mural at 11:40 PM, having suffered a fatal bullet wound to the head, apparently self-inflicted.

He woke up in Scramble Crossing the next day, his phone vibrating in his pocket. All business, he found a competent partner in one Megumi Kitaniji, a grown man whose ambitions seemed limitless.

The Composer asked him, as he and Megumi stood in the Room of Reckoning, what path they wanted to take. Joshua pressed a few buttons on his phone absently, and a vending machine fell from the sky onto the Composer. Megumi struck like lightning, and the battle began. Joshua dealt the final blow, of course, with the gun he had used to end his own life. It was too easy, really. This Composer hadn’t even plumbed the true depths of his power.

The Conductor looked up from her desk in surprise, seeing Joshua in his full radiance standing above her, with Megumi standing behind him wearing a serpentine smile. Joshua had the decency to grimace with distaste before pulling the trigger. The coup was complete in a space of under fifteen minutes.

Joshua stood on 104 with Sanae, watching Neku Sakuraba pull on his headphones, drown out the world with walls of music.

“He’s got Imagination even higher than mine, you know.”

“He’s not on Minamimoto’s level.”

“Please, don’t mention that pedantic ignoramus in front of me, Sanae. It must be Neku if it will be anyone.”

It was 11:40 AM, but Joshua wasn’t going to sweat something as simple as that. Tradition had to be served. His first shot was at Minamimoto, who fired back, but Joshua was not that deficient of a Composer, and he stopped the bullets in their tracks. Minamimoto fled, and Joshua very casually shot Sakuraba. He made a gesture of victory, and dropped a Player Pin onto his chest. Who needed to erase Shibuya outright when playing with lives was this much fun?

Joshua laughed and headed to WildKat for a cup of coffee.


End file.
